Here we are in another Fall season where Gatorade and fruit snacks are given after every pee-wee soccer game and the traditional pumpkin pail was swapped out to carry Halloween candy in a larger pillow case. It doesn’t take a long, hard look at your child’s loot from Halloween to wonder, how do we handle sugar with our kids?

As I shared in the past few blog posts on How Much Sugar Can My Child Have? and How to Handle Halloween Candy with Kids, there are a lot of considerations that go into what constitutes an appropriate amount of sugar at a given time of year. This advice has been geared towards children ages two and older and has targeted some of the more quantitative questions around sugar intake like:

How much sugar can my child have per day?
How do I identify sugar on an ingredients list or calculate sugar on a nutrition facts label?
How many pieces of Halloween candy can my kid have the night of?
How long do I let them keep eating the Halloween candy?
…and questions of this nature.

Today’s post is going to take some of the most common food parenting practices I see being used with sugar to help parents better think through how to handle sugar with our kids. These are much more subjective topics to touch on and may raise some eyebrows of indifference, as sugar is a touchy topic with what feels obvious (and often restrictive) versus counter-intuitive (hello offering desserts with dinner). That said, I have referenced several experts in the field of pediatric nutrition and feeding who I believe provide additional insight on these common sugar-related pitfalls and best practices.

How to Handle Sugar with Our Kids

How treats are often misused

Instead of: Restricting sweets

In the book, “Raising A Healthy, Happy Eater,” pediatrician Dr. Fernando and feeding expert Melanie Potock share,

“Some parents may restrict treats like dessert and ban all forms of sugar, in hopes of establishing good eating habits. At first glance, this may seem like a good strategy, but there are many unwanted consequences of making too much of a big deal about dessert. By saying “no” to all desserts, you may actually be making them more appealing. Kids may end up placing more importance on dessert and lose interest in delicious whole foods that are better for them. Sweet treats will eventually make their way to your child’s mouth, whether you want them to or not. Rather than shy away from sugar, use sweet treats as a way to show your child how to build a healthy and well-rounded diet, despite their external environment.”

Consider: Establishing a dessert policy that fits our family’s values for a healthy lifestyle

Instead of overly restricting our child(ren)’s access to sugar/sweets or using tactics to bribe or punish them with such preferred foods, consider adopting a routine for what, when, and where sweet foods will be offered. In some families (particularly those with one younger child), sweets might be reserved for special occasions or outings where they are being offered, but lesser so within the home (see below). For families where sweets have historically been offered more liberally, a family may practice setting up a Division of Responsibility around sweets offering them only once each day (a reduction from what was maybe done previously). Over time, such a family may choose to lessen the frequency of how often such sweets are offered once structure is in place and other naturally sweet food options are introduced. This can help to leave more room in the diet for the days or seasons when more added sugar is around and consumed, such as birthdays or holidays.

I have spoken to several families who are concerned that their child is “sugar obsessed.” Not all the time, but sometimes this can be related to too strict of a dessert policy and language that elevates instead of neutralizes sweets. Such parents may opt to get customized advice and assistance from a registered dietitian, but can often benefit from loosing up a bit on their child’s sugar intake initially to offer it in a more predictable fashion. This creates enough permission and abundance for a child to begin to find their sense of discernment over mindfully eating sugar-sweetened options when available. The Ellyn Satter Institute shares some great insight on how to do this here.

For those wondering and who will ask, in my home (with kids currently ages 5, 3, and 1), we generally do traditional desserts (like cookies, ice cream, cupcakes, etc.) on weekends or special occasions. All other days of the week fruit is offered with dinner in place of a more traditional “dessert.” My youngest has not yet had any form of dessert nor has shown interest, so we will hold him off as long as possible. For my 3 and 5 year old, we use our dessert policy to help maintain a Division of Responsibility and minimize meltdowns around sugar since there is a predictable pattern to when, where, and what desserts are being offered.

If you have more questions specific to sugar introduction in infants and young toddlers, I encourage you to check out an excellent post, titled How to Handle Sugar for Babies and Toddlers, from fellow dietitian mom Renae D'Andrea.

Instead of: Using sweets as a reward

Pediatric feeding experts agree that using food to pressure a child to eat is one of the most common yet universally ineffective approaches to raising kids who develop healthy eating habits in childhood that carry into adulthood.

In their book, “Fearless Feeding: How to Raise Healthy Eaters from High Chair to High School,” dietitians Jill Castle and Maryann Jacobsen share how using a reward-based feeding style often has a “reverse effect,” resulting in the opposite outcome of what is intended:

When parents reward their child for eating vegetables with dessert, for example, the child places a higher value on the dessert (reward food).

Furthermore, Maryann Jacobsen goes on to share on her blog how, “using palatable foods as a reward makes them even more appealing to kids. And on the opposite end, using healthy food as punishment, to get the reward, makes kids less interested in the healthy food.” While this may seem innocent enough and to not have a big impact on our child(ren) in the short term, Maryann warns parents of the lifelong implications of using sugar repeatedly as a reward in her post titled, “What Rewarding Kids with Food Looks Like 20 Years Later.”

Consider: Choosing fun, non-food rewards (when appropriate)

If you need a reward for something, consider all the things that your child(ren) is into that doesn’t include food! There are so many ways to provide incentive or reward kids without needing to bring sugar or any food for that matter into the equation. Here are some great non-food reward ideas. Consider these instead, and leave food as something to be enjoyed as part of all that makes a celebration. Then, remember that with a Division of Responsibility, pressure of any form (including bribing with sweets) should not be used. We want to be omit rewards tied to eating, and instead encourage mindfulness while role modeling the health-promoting behaviors we wish them to take to over time.

Instead of: Bribing our kids with sweets

In a study cited in Ellyn Satter’s book, “Child of Mine,” 12% of parents with 20- to 24-month-olds used force or bribery to get their children to eat. With this, we see how early on parents adopt feeding styles in attempts to get their children to eat when feeding hiccups arise. While this is a natural struggle for all of us (especially us parents of apprehensive eaters) and an easy trap to fall into, we must try to remember that bribing our kids to eat is yet another food parenting pitfall that doesn’t work. Rather than compelling kids to eat more and/or make better food choices, bribery creates a feeding environment where children feel pressure to eat. This can create cracks in the foundation of a family’s Division of Responsibility in Feeding.

Consider: Offering dessert with dinner

I know it can be hard to make sense of how to maintain a Division of Responsibility in Feeding where a healthy, wholesome balance of foods are offered without feeling the need to bribe bites of healthy options for more palatable, sweet ones (like the balance recommended here). However, the tactic of trying to bribe, reward, or restrict our child’s ability to have dessert based on whatever else they are to eat almost always adds strain to a family’s meal time. Instead, try offering dessert with dinner.

I know many families question this and can’t wrap their heads around the idea that their child “will only eating a dessert option” when it is offered with a meal instead of restricted until the end. But I challenge you to try it. Initially, a child may eat the dessert first or exclusively when meals are first offered in this way. However, I have seen hundreds of children AND parents find immense freedom when meals don’t revolve around if/whether dessert can be had based on how much a child otherwise ate. Wouldn’t that be amazing to just set dessert out, let each member of the family enjoy it, preoccupy the precious time and energy at a meal on something other than if your child “earned dessert?” Yes! It is amazing. Equally so, it is amazing to see the shift in a child who was historically preoccupied with dessert and may have initially ate it first at a meal become a child who eats the other elements of a meal willingly alongside or often before that same dessert is dug into. Although at first your child (and spouse!) might wonder if it is a trick the first time meals are offered this way, practice offering desserts with meals and see if/how it helps neutralize sweets for everyone in your family!

Where Sugar Use is Often Abused

Instead of: Offering high-sugar snacks

An article by Today’s Dietitian reported that, “For children aged 2 to 12, an estimated 30% of daily calories are consumed in the form of sweet and salty snacks, and up to 40% of total daily calories are consumed in snacks when sugar-sweetened beverages are included.” It goes on to highlight the concerning link between snacking and childhood obesity, and more specifically, research that suggests:

“Greater snacking frequency of energy-dense foods, such as cookies, chips, and sweets, is linked with increased risk of excessive weight gain in childhood.”

Such statistics as this aren’t intend to create fear for parents, but as the nutritional gatekeepers of our homes, we have to recognize the role we play in what our kids are eating. While it can be good to have energy-dense foods on hand to eat on occasion, we want to be mindful about how eating such often high-sugar options on a regular basis can both crowd out other nutrients our kids need and create habits that they carry through childhood and adulthood.

As adults, we can quickly think to those who reach for more healthful snacks when given the choice and access as an adult versus those who do not. We can visualize the people we know who plan ahead to eat more nutrient-rich options throughout the day to regulate their appetite and overall health, versus those who lean on quick, convenience food and are less conditioned to prioritize such nourishing options. This can happen for a variety of reasons, but what a gift we can instill in our children to teach them from an early age what constitutes a “snack food.”

Consider: Including healthier snack options that leverage sugar only as necessary.

It is easy to reach for snack options that just so happen to have added sugar. That’s why, if a family is going to include added sugar at a snack time, I encourage them to do so in a way that leverages a food with greater nutritional density. As shared in this post, snacks may have added sugar in order to leverage other nutrient-dense foods being eaten. This might be in something like adding chocolate chips to energy bites or a small drizzle of honey to homemade yogurt cups so that your child gets to enjoy the taste of something sweet but not at the expense of it displacing or replacing a nutrient-dense snack option. However a family chooses to add or avoid added sugars at snack time, it is wise to use added sugar as a vehicle for more nutritional density in the diet, if at all.

Need some snack ideas? I share more of my favorite pre-packaged snack ideas here or include eight’s week worth of healthier muffin recipes (that leverage the added sugar with added nutritional boosts) here.

Instead of: Playing into the sub-par snack options at extra-curricular activities

This is my first year as a soccer mom and it didn’t take me long to add up in my head how much sugar the after game snacks had in them. I am all for exercise and refueling, but in my three and five year olds, they don’t need twice their daily sugar quota after a single soccer game (that they may or may not have even touched the ball in). This isn’t to place judgement on anyone who may be toting a cooler of Gatorades and fruit snacks for after the next game but rather to offer out some alternative ideas for how we can lower the amount of added sugar our kids get on the norm. Currently, it is common practice for such after-school or extra-curricular activities to have snacks that include added sugar. Each one of us that offers up an alternative option can instead begin to change the tone towards what other options existing as fuel for our kids.

Consider: Promoting age-appropriate snack options at extra-curricular activities

If you don’t like what is being offered, consider how you could join (or lead, if not yet existing) a wellness committee in your child’s respective extra-curricular activities so that snacks are more appropriate for age, activity, and nutritional needs. It can be hard to put yourself out there when many other families may not be concerned about if sugary snacks are offered at such after school activities. However, there are resources to help you respectfully present some healthy, lower-sugar options to others within the organization to make small steps towards changing this feeding environment for your kids (and many others in your community)!

Fellow dietitian mom and snack-activist Sally Kuzemchak has taken a stand against snack options offered on the sidelines. Through her “Snacktivism” campaign, Sally aims to stop the unhealthy eating pattern of sugar-sweetened snacks being served at after-school activities, including sporting events. She lays out a variety of resources to help parents, coaches, preschools, churches, and after-school organizations to institute a healthier snack policy in their programs. You can learn more about how to transform the snack options being offering in your child’s extra-curricular environment here.

Instead of: Panicking about the sweets eaten on vacation

I am often asked how to handle sweets when traveling or away on vacation. My best advice here is maintain as much normal as you can with the Division of Responsibility and a regular eating routine. While meals and snacks are likely to be a bite more flexible and include different foods than your normal when away from home, it is a good idea to try to create consistency and limit unnecessary added sugar where you can. This might mean packing food so you aren’t having to eat whatever is available at the airport or en route on a car trip, or ordering groceries to be delivered to your destination so you can have some meals and snacks at home (where added sugar can be limited). Then, as you figure out what the groove is for your family while away, you can adapt to include sweets both spontaneously when on the beach boardwalk and wanting an ice cream cone or after a fun meal eaten out. It isn’t that sugar needs to be sworn off on vacation, but setting up some structure to the meals and snacks that will be available will naturally reduce the chance for added sugar sneaking in when it isn’t a part of a dessert or treat you intentionally offered your child to enjoy. For some healthier, non-perishable prepackaged snack ideas to take on trips, get your free download, “20 Best Pre-Packaged Snacks at Target.” You can also see some of the snacks we keep in our fridge here (if you are traveling in a way that could pack a cooler to take along with you).

Additionally, as we get closer to the holidays, another big question (and concern) that comes up related to sugar and travel is how to handle feeding our kids when we are out of town but at a relatives house. Without wanting to offend our host, we can think through how to discuss this topic with our family with ideas such as those shared here. While we don’t want to come off as ungrateful or get into a tense conflict with anyone who has been gracious enough to host us and our children, there are things we can do to adapt and be accountable for some of what is being offered. Furthermore, it is up to us as the parents to help our kids bounce back to our normal feeding dynamics once we return home. So even if all boundaries on sugar are tossed out the window when at Grandma and Grandpa’s, we can resume our normal routine with offering sweets once our stay is over.

Consider: Embracing sweets in moderation on vacation

One of the best things about vacation is that even when travelling with children, it offers us a break from our day to day norms. This includes in what, when, and where we eat! So consider what meal and snack routine may work best while away and find fun, meaningful was to include more indulgent food options including sweets. This is likely part of what brings joy and fond memories to your family’s vacation and is to be treasured! Choose freedom in that and resume a more normal food routine once returning home.

In Summary

Sugar is a difficult ingredient for most families to know how to manage healthfully. Without being overly strict or permissive, you as the parent can set appropriate boundaries with sugar intake to reflect the type of diet and lifestyle you desire for your family.

For more resources on this subject, check out any of the following posts: